Detour...

Today proved to be a fabulous day.

 

We began the morning at the small shops in downtown Colorado Springs. If you have never been to the city, you must go! There are the greatest stores that house jewelry by local artists, paintings, pottery and more. The people are friendly and the city has an awesome vibe.  I fell in love with work by one of the artists who used recycled silver spoons and old belts to create beautiful jewelry. Who would've thought?!

We realized early on in the day we had miscalculated the time it would take us to get to Yuba City. We had an extra day to spend traveling shopping and sightseeing. 

We chose to take a detour south from Colorado Springs toward Buena Vista as recommended by some great friends. Before we arrived in Beuna Vista, we stopped for lunch at a small place called Swiss Chalet.  I ordered the fish tacos (which was amazing smoked trout with a jalapeno avacado salsa that was out of this world) while Logan got the bratwurst with sauerkraut. Dessert was equally as awesome- a four layer fudge cake. . .

 



 

(thanks iPhone photo!)

 

(I'm noticing this blog is becoming more and more about our food while we are traveling... if you know me very well, that isn't surprising!)

Buena Vista was a very cool mountain town, which had a great thrift shop, kayak store, and lots of other shops.

At the highest point in our journey today we reached an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet. When we reached the top, we noticed a still frozen lake I stopped to photograph:



 

We traveled through many other mountain towns-- Vail, CO being one of our favorites. . . we passed through Glenwood Canyon which was an amazing sight!

Today was a short day; we only traveled about 300 miles. We stopped for the night in Palisade, CO at what could have possibly been the tiniest hotel room ever built. It definitely wasn't like where we stayed last night, but the sheets were clean and we were worn out.

 (thanks, iPhone photo!)

 

 

Oh, and I can't forget these exciting things:

 

-The Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile! *Yes, I crossed that off my bucket list!

-A Volkswagon Beetle carrying two kayaks

-A town called "Yellow Cat"

-A town called "No Name"

-Kenna got another tooth today! :-)